Workshop
Description:

Spurred on by a widespread belief that TCP is showing its age and
needs replacing - and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of
congestion control - the research community has brought forward many
new congestion control algorithms. There has been lots of debate
about the relative merits and demerits of the new schemes; and a
standardization effort is under way in the IETF.

But before the next congestion control mechanism is deployed, it
will need to be deployed widely in operating systems and - in some
cases - in switches and routers too. This will be a long road,
requiring the buy-in of many people: Researchers, product developers
and business leaders too. Our own experience of proposing new
congestion control algorithms has been met with the challenge: "Show
me the compelling need for a new congestion control mechanisms?",
and "What will really happen to the Internet (and my business)
if we keep TCP just the way it is?"

As a community, we need examples that are simple to understand,
and demonstrate a compelling need for change. We call them the "Train
wreck scenarios". Examples might show that distribution of video
over wireless in the home will come to a halt without new algorithms.
Or that P2P traffic will bring the whole network crashing down. Or
that huge, high-performance data-centers need new algorithms.
Whatever your favorite example, we believe that if we are
collectively armed with a handful of mutually agreed examples, it
will be much easier to make a business case for change. Or put
another way, if we can't articulate compelling examples to industry
leaders, then is the cost and risk of change worth it?

The goal of the workshop is to identify a handful of really
compelling demonstrations of the impending train-wreck. The outcome
will be a set of canonical examples that we will use to persuade
industry of the need for change.

You can choose the way you present your demonstration: You could
bring equipment and show a live-demo; you could show simulations or
animations; or you could produce a video showing a real or synthetic
demo. Whatever method you choose, the goal is to create a case that
will persuade a mildly-technical but influential business leader of
the need for change.

We will invite a panel of judges to give prizes for the most
compelling examples in two categories: (1) The Overall Most
Compelling Example, which will be judged on a combination of the
technical merits and the presentation of the scenario, and (2) The
Most Technically Compelling Example, which will be judged on its
technical merit alone, without consideration of the way it is
presented.

The whole purpose of the workshop it to focus on the problem,
not the solutions. We are most definitely not interested in
your favorite scheme, or ours. So we need some ground-rules.

No-one is allowed to mention a specific mechanism, algorithm
or proposal at any time during the workshop: Not in their talk, not
in a panel, and not in questions to the speakers.

The only mechanisms that will be allowed mention are: TCP (in
its standard and deployed flavors), and idealized alternatives for
purposes of demonstration. For example, comparing TCP with an oracle
that provides instantaneous optimal rates to each flow.

We will video the entire workshop and all the demonstrations, and
make it publicly available on the Internet. We will make any
proceedings and talks available too. The goal is to open up the
demonstrations for public scrutiny and feedback after the event.

The event is hosted by the Stanford Clean Slate Program and local
arrangements will be made by the Stanford Computer Forum, Nick
McKeown and Nandita Dukkipati. The workshop has received offers of
support and funding from Cisco Systems and Microsoft.